When topics such as abortion advice, safe drug use, euthanasia, etc. all fall under such a scheme, that counts as censorship in my book.

Sure, I completely agree. However, as far as messaging for an effective campaign goes, it's not a good argument. Most Australians are comfortable with the notion of some material being restricted (aka, censored). The idea of Internet exceptionalism isn't going to win widespread support to the campaign to oppose the filter.

This pig-headed push for censorship, and censorship does not just mean "political censorship", is misguided. It's not just filtering ("happy fields of flowers with pink fluffy bunnies" imagery) of the internet. When topics such as abortion advice, safe drug use, euthanasia, etc. all fall under such a scheme, that counts as censorship in my book.

If Conroy were to only ONCE going to say "RC *IS*…" instead of his political "RC includes…", I'd be willing to cut him some slack. But by not giving us the full truth about what he counts in and out of RC for the purpose of this filter, he is censoring himself.

The fact is, this is driven by Kevin Rudd himself, any other leader would have looked at all the gaffes and flaws of this proposal and knocked it on the head, but given that Conroy has not once had his fingers smacked for being so stupid shows that either Conroy has so much clout that Rudd's afraid of him or that this is driven by Mr Rudd's ideals and those quiet "stakeholders" we keep hearing about.

I was a stalwart Labor supporter for the last decade, this subject has radically altered my view. And yes, before that I was a Liberal supporter, but the moment they tried this idiocy, I switched my allegiance. I have done it again, because I believe this issue is as important as all other policies Labor had in their favor.

I agree that the filter will not be successful and will be a waste of money – hence why I'm arguing for the filter money to be given to the Federal Police cyber crimes unit. I disagree about the Joe Smith pornography argument. Most men, even if they do regularly use the Internet to search for pornography, would not admit it, and I don't think it is so important that they would change their vote (especially since they can access legal, classified pornography from newsagents and petrol stations).

But you're comparing apples (TV, radio and print) with oranges (the internet), it doesn't really qualify your argument.

The internet is a vastly different beast to TV, radio and print, for example you cannot apply the same classification regime to a website where gay people might be discussing issues about sexuality, a swingers website, child abuse support website. We may argue that any of these sites may contain 'contextually' valid pictures that fall in to the abyss that is the RC un-category.

The furore surrounding the SA Attorney General Michael Atkinson and the explosion of media surrounding the legislation enacted regarding censorship of websites is a good example of media going bananas to make change.

I think if the internet censorship plan went ahead, and Joe Smith of Normal street was alone and his wife was out, and he was trying to access Redtube (which is on the Wikileaks leaked blacklist, close enough to the official one) and he couldn't access his porn, I think you will see a significant backlash, as most men look at porn on the net, well I do anyway.

I do agree with what you mention at the end though.

Are criminals who conspire to commit a crime, murder or assault protected under your notion of “free speech”?

Your right to free speech ends where it infringes on my right to safety. Hate-speech infringes on that right.

Perhaps the person operating the blacklist will decide that your opinions are somehow offensive to their sacred cow and decide to add you to the blacklist. Offence is in they eye of the beholder.

In my opinion absolutely they do, that doesn't mean I have to agree with them but if I cannot respect their right to freedom-of-speech then I cannot reasonably expect society to respect mine. Supporting a person's right to free speech does not mean we have to agree with what they say and our free-speech enables us to object and challenge their ideas.

When we deny free-speech to one particular group of people we begin the downward steps towards totalitarianism, first we block the neo-nazi's then the white supremacists and who's next? Atheist's? we do have allot of religious politicians is it really that far fetched to expect Atheist websites to find their way onto the blacklist?

Censorship is cumulative it will start my blocking only the “worst of the worst” but is it really that hard to imagine a gradual expansion of the list, especially with all the special interest groups lobbying like crazy to have their personal dislikes added?

I completely agree that the filter is ineffective, and will probably block legitimate websites. It will probably also let through inappropriate material. I also completely agree that the web is so large that no filter could ever possibly accurately block every objectionable site.

I don't agree that the filter is the first step toward a totalitarian state. The sedition laws, and the ABCC are far worse than the proposed filter.

It is a bit naive on your part to say “The Internet filter proposes to apply the same classification standard that exists for every other publication type in Australia, to the Internet” because this is simply not what is proposed – and ignores the fact that the term “publication” is of doubtful accuracy for web pages, and that it is only intended to apply it to a minuscule subset of web pages – which are quite likely to change rapidly anyway. With over a trillion web pages indexed by Google over a year ago, increasing at over a billion a day, the government is proposing to censor a mere 1,000 – 10,000. This can not possibly make any difference to the web experience except to censor a few web pages that are embarrassing to the government, so it is a reasonable assumption that this is the purpose. Add to that the careful avoidance of the word “censorship” and the release of the policy while all attention was on Copenhagen and the PM overseas, and the conclusion is even more inescapable.